As Above, So Below
by DreadNot
Summary: The battle of London is the Apocalypse and the Four Horsemen ride. Who are the Horsemen? An idea from Tazo. Post volume 6 spoilers. One shot.


**Behold**

_And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. _ – Revelation 6:1

Below, the chaos raged, the battle roared and the fallen Angel and the exalted Devil battled toward the fair maiden.

The seals had been lifted and broken, but still the Dragon knelt before his Master, the maiden knight. She did not need the Paladin to rescue her, but still he came to slay the beast.

Two old enemies met with a clash of blades that resounded from the streets to the zeppelin that floated above them. It would have been the classic clash of evil and good if one could determine which was which – the lines had more than blurred, they had broken, shattered, and disappeared entirely.

Above, the Major shouted through the cacophony of war and all heard him laugh and call, _"Come and see!"_ The lines reasserted themselves once more and the two implacable enemies found themselves in silent agreement on alliance. They stared up at_ their _Adversary. The sudden silence was filled with the promise that the calm could not last.

**Plague**

_And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer._ – Revelation 6:2

"More! Give me more! This is beautiful." Doc held out his hand, demanding, and grasped the syringe his assistant gave him. His children had been ordered to bring him more subjects rather than killing all the humans on the ground, and Doc was having a delightful time.

He looked at the woman on the table. She was an unremarkable specimen in most regards. That didn't matter to Millennium's mad scientist; what mattered to him was not the woman, it was his serum. With a virtually limitless number of test subjects culled from the inferno of London, Doc had the opportunity to test a variety of different formulations he hadn't had the luxury of trying during the time leading up to their glorious new war.

He'd been replicating the more commonly known and understood European strain of vampirism to the point that he felt that he'd not only duplicated the effects, but improved upon them in some manners. His new contagion was superior in so many ways, even if his children lacked the ability to steal and enslave souls that made Alucard so dangerous.

These new formulations, though, were different. He watched the woman scream and thrash and took notes to supplement the video and audiotapes his assistants were preparing.

He smiled still more as her face began to turn black and her eyes red. "Excellent." He scribbled furiously on his notepad and motioned for one of his assistants to take still photos of the process. Things were coming along perfectly. The subject's ears had elongated and taken on a far more animalistic appearance when things began to go awry. She broke free of the bindings and began to claw at herself with talons that were fierce and deadly. She managed to spray the room with her blood before finally succeeding in her self-destruction.

Doc removed his glasses and cleaned the spray off of the lenses. It didn't matter that the subject was dead, he looked at the pile of bodies heaped on gurneys by the door – there were more where she came from. The callicantzaro experiment would go on.

He gestured for another subject and waited for the shouting man to be restrained. He had so much work to do; just because they were in the middle of global destruction was no excuse to let his research lapse.

He had but to look to his creations to know that his life's work would meet with the recognition it deserved.

**War**

_And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. _– Revelation 6:4

War is not about talk. It is about action. Hans Günsche had been the threat wielded by the strong of mind, but weak of body for much of his life.

Now was not the time for threats, now was the time for War. He carried his long knife – knife? that blade was long enough to make most swords feel inadequate – and cut down Catholic warriors and Dracula's zombies with equal ease.

There were so few challenges to be had in this night and the best of them were off limits to him until all the horsemen were astride. Plague was spreading, war was in his hands, there would be a famine of hope very soon, and then death would walk – then he would have his challenges. Until then, he contented himself with what diversion he could find.

Diversion came in the form of a straggling Iscariot. She had been separated from her group by a squad of his soldiers. What should have been a quick slaughter, or perhaps a little protracted play with the pretty little Japanese woman had turned into a massacre – of his men.

The Captain arrived in time to watch her finish the last of the four vampires that had attacked her. This was no mere human. How could she have possibly survived that? Doc would want to see her if the Captain could take her alive. He'd taken the Butler alive, how challenging could a single woman be?

He found out when she rushed him with a scream of rage. She was faster than a human should be, stronger than her small frame should be, and much more skillful than he would have expected from a petite woman in a nun's habit.

He was too tall for her to go for a head strike, but it was still an effort to block the blow she aimed at his heart. He'd never bothered to learn Japanese or English, but it was clear that she was not shouting prayers for his soul as she tried again and again to penetrate his guard.

No matter how determined, no matter how berserk, she was just a human after all. The Captain quickly tired of his play and dropped his knife. She charged him one last time with a shriek of rage and even her blood lust was penetrated by the shock of her blade being stopped by his bare hands. He wrenched the katana out of her grasp and struck her a blow calculated to disable, not kill. He watched in silent satisfaction as the nun crumpled to the ground.

Quite a world they lived in that even a woman who had given her life to God was an implement of destruction. He hefted her limp form onto his shoulder to deliver her to Doc. He had but to look to his leader to know that they were all mad and that destroying everything was exactly what was needed.

**Famine**

_And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. _– Revelation 6:5

Major Montana Max watched his men sweep over London like a plague of locusts through a verdant crop. The few humans that would escape this night alive would know that there was no sustenance for their souls; they would hunger for hope and they would starve.

Schrödinger popped in and out, bringing him information from the ground. "Major, they're dying down there. The Hellsing woman's vampire is eating your men and turning them against you."

"It's alright, warrant officer, it's all part of the bloody feast. He may feed now, but in the end, his feeding will only make him hunger more and he will be ours."

Only Schrödinger heard him murmur, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine."

The catboy shrugged and returned to his reconnaissance. The Major had some odd ideas, but he was the leader who had brought them to this wonderfully bloody night and Schrödinger was enjoying himself as much as any other Millennium soldier. After fifty-five years of thinking about the long term, the time was finally _now._

Major Max could feel _Her_ raging hunger. Her hunger had been with him since he had allowed himself to become another carrier of Doc's plague. There was not a moment of his day that Her desire to feed on humanity was not with him. He thought it was only meet that in a clash of biblical proportions that they would have the First Woman on their side.

"Soon, my dear Lady. Soon. We will create such a blood bath that you will rise and raven across the face of this planet and take your vengeance on your creator and his works." He spoke aloud, knowing that the bound figure in the hold of his zeppelin could hear him.

The Major knew that his Captain had found and battled an unusual warrior. He knew that Doc was currently incubating new vectors for his plague. Their last member was in waiting and the Major hungered to put him to use.

He wanted to consume London, in flames, in blood, in terror; he didn't care how. He had worked so hard and so long for this feast and he intended to gorge until the city was nothing but bare bones.

He monitored the movements of his enemies and was delighted to call out his invitation, _Come and see,_ when they were all properly assembled. They had their four – the girl, the woman, the angel and the devil – to face his four – Plague, War, Famine, and of course, Death. Too bad for them that they did not have an ally that could compare to Lilith.

It had all the elements of a classic tragedy: love, loss and betrayal, and paramount, the victory of evil over good. He had but to look to their fourth horseman to know that they had obtained all the components required to enact the most perfect of dramas and to bring about the final curtain call.

**Death**

_And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. _ – Revelation 6:8

Death's face cannot show emotion. Death does not distinguish between friend or enemy.

God created the role of Angel of Death to do his dirty work – to do the smiting when God decreed. This angel was as much a tool of his new god as the original ever was and he protected his master with a single-minded intensity that belied the actual division within his mind.

He cut helicopters from the sky and bullets out of the air in the name of his master. He watched people he recognized with half of his mind fight and bleed, and he waited until he would meet them again in the name of his master.

Half of his mind, the part that was in charge of his body, was nothing more than the purest incarnation of his nom de guerre; the other half was the man who had promised to return to his master alive at all costs, when his master had been an honorable woman, not the pig he served now. Much of the time he spent awaiting the last trump was spent in a pitched battle that no one but God could witness. Angel fought angel within his mind with no holds barred and no punches pulled. He fought himself to a standstill and no one ever knew that one of the great battles of World War III was not waged on the ground, but behind the quiet eyes of one man. The battle was fought until finally peace came by default – when one of two combatants loses, peace follows.

The beast called, _Come and see,_ the calm came, and the Angel of Death moved to walk among the living and undead to bring his peace without care to past history or future potential.

* * *

_AN: I hardly know why I'm claiming this fic as mine, since it would not have this form, or exist at all without help from two other very talented Hellsing fanfic writers. The idea of the Captain, Major, Doc, and Dark Walter in the roles of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was originally Tazo's. I was unhappy with the first incarnation of the Major's segment and Thess suggested the use of "Her" to help it flesh out a bit._

_The Major's quote, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine," is from Revelation 6:6, one of two verses to deal with the Horseman, Famine._


End file.
